Various means are known for the automated processing of articles. An example of the application of this technology is in the fruit sorting and packing industry. WO 2004/67417 describes arrangements that may be used with such systems. More particularly, it describes carriers that convey articles along a conveyor. During this passage, the articles may be inspected and ejected from the carrier to a destination that is selected based on the results of the inspection. While not limited thereto, following sorting, the articles are often passed to a second conveyor, which may be in the form of a belt conveyor rather than the preferred discrete carriers illustrated in WO 2004/67417. The second conveyor may pass the articles on for subsequent processing such as packing. Alternatively, for example, buckets or other containers may be provided instead of the second conveyor that enable articles having similar characteristics to be batched together and subsequently transferred in bulk.
To maximise throughput, the first and second conveyors travel at some speed. This, in combination with the need to impart a reasonable degree of force to eject the articles from the first conveyor, the possible difference in height between the first and second conveyors and the common requirement to change the direction of travel from that of the first conveyor to that of the second conveyor can damage the articles being processed during transfer from the first conveyor to the second conveyor. For foodstuffs such as fruit, this can seriously affect appearance and marketability.
To this end, some systems have provided linear gradient chutes which aid in the transfer of articles from the first conveyor to the second conveyor. These have conventionally been arranged such that articles travel along the chutes perpendicular to the direction of travel of the second conveyor. While these do prevent articles from being subjected to excessive drops in height where the second conveyor is somewhat lower than the first conveyor, they still result in the articles arriving at the second conveyor with considerable speed and hence the extent of damage to the articles is only lessened. Some arrangements provide padding to the walls of the second conveyor such that the major impacts of the articles against the supporting structure are mitigated.
In arrangements such as those described in WO 2004/67417, articles are processed at high rates. Consequently, any temporary blockage in the processing stream can result in collisions between the articles which also causes damage. As will be appreciated, articles will temporarily stall when colliding with a padded wall. Consequently, while the effects of colliding with the surrounding walls are mitigated, collisions and damage are generated as a result of these measures between the articles themselves.
It is an object of the invention to provide improved arrangements for the transfer of articles from one point to another so as to at least mitigate the aforementioned problems.
Alternatively, it is an object to provide arrangements for reducing the likelihood of articles being processed from colliding with other such articles during processing thereof.
Alternatively, it is an object of the invention to at least provide a useful choice to the public.